How BDS'ers intimidate entertainers from performing in Israel

As I may have mentioned in the seven and a half years I have been writing this blog, I pray my morning prayers at sunrise, seven days a week, and have done so for the past 17 years. There was one previous period in my life when I prayed at sunrise every day, and that was when I was in yeshiva. Some of my early-rising friends and I decided that the theme song of our prayer service should be House of the Rising Sun (we didn't really know all words then - it's not so appropriate for Orthodox Jewish prayers).

The Animals' Eric Burdon - who sings that song - was supposed to come to Israel to perform. Unfortunately, death threats from the BDS'ers have scared him off.

Israeli fans of golden oldies won’t be hearing Eric Burdon grind out his signature House of The Rising Sun. The lead Animals singer canceled his appearance, a victim of intimidation including death threats to stay away from the Jewish state.

Many of those who support BDS think they're just pressuring Israel to end the 'occupation.' But that's not what those who founded BDS have in mind. And their exclusive focus on Israel is nothing short of rank hypocrisy.

UK’s self-anointed celebrity Middle East activists have brought a certain panache and chutzpah to their hypocritical anti-Israel street theatre. Last year, a letter signed by three-dozen British celebrities, including actress Emma Thompson, followed unsuccessful demonstrations to force a cancellation at London’s Old Globe Theater of a Hebrew language performance of The Merchant of Venice by Israel’s renowned Habima Theater. Habima’s alleged crime: “ a shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Of course, these cultural icons’ selective outrage was absent, despite brutal Chinese repression in Tibet, when an official performance of Richard III in Mandarin was presented. Around the same time, “Beethovians for Boycotting Israel” sang their own version of the Ode to Joy repeatedly during a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

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The mastermind behind this madness emanates from Omar Barghouti, cofounder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). Born in Qatar and brought up in Egypt, Barghouti graduated from Columbia University before attending the Philosophy Department at Tel Aviv University. His “ethical theory” for brainwashing the celebrati against Israel is actually borrowed from pre-WWII Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci who argued that the way to defeat the enemy was not through economic struggles waged by workers, but rather by achieving “hegemony” over elite institutions and popular culture.

But while BDSers may be gleeful about their latest success in scaring off Eric Burdon from Israel, what have they actually accomplished? They haven’t improved the life of a single Palestinian. They haven’t won over a single Israeli that there is real hope for “the peace process.” Quite the opposite. BDSers have just made it harder for shuttle diplomat John Kerry–who just convinced Israeli PM Netanyahu to release dozens of jailed Palestinian terrorists with as a gesture to PA President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of renewed direct peace talks.

The BDS smokescreen that its boycott is only a limited, peaceful strategy to force Israel out of “Occupied Palestinian territories” is a lie. Just ask Norman Finkelstein—among the world’s leading Israel bashers—who ultimately couldn’t stomach BDS hypocrisy, scolding the Movement’s leaders: “Stop trying to be so clever, because you’re only clever in your cult. . . [It is] not an accident, an unwitting omission, that BDS does not mention Israel: they know it will split the movement, because there’s a large segment-component-of the movement that wants to eliminate Israel.”

It's a shame that so many entertainers are being scared off coming to Israel. But that doesn't make BDS a success. For the most part they have been an epic failure.